| “Tabula Rasa” | |||||||
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| Stargate Atlantis episode | |||||||
 McKay's message to his forgetting self. |
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| Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 6 |
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| Written by | Alan McCullough | ||||||
| Directed by | Martin Wood | ||||||
| Guest stars | Kavan Smith as Major Lorne David Nykl as Radek Zelenka Brenda James as Katie Brown Jewel Staite as Dr. Keller Zach Selwyn as Scientist |
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| Production no. | 406 | ||||||
| Original airdate | November 2, 2007 | ||||||
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| Episode chronology | |||||||
"Tabula Rasa" is the sixth episode of the fourth season of the science fiction television series Stargate Atlantis. The term tabula rasa means scraped tablet or clean slate in Latin, referring to a fresh start, or starting over.
Plot
The episode opens with McKay waking up and finding himself tied to the desk. Confused and scared, he finds a note that tells him to activate a recorded message. The message shows McKay, who is giving instructions to himself. The recording tells McKay how to free himself from the desk and not to trust anybody. Most importantly, the recording tells McKay to find Teyla, because she is the only person who can save Atlantis. The scene then shifts to fourteen hours in the past. McKay visits Katie Brown in her lab. She has discovered a new plant that she decides to name after McKay. She then complains that she isn't feeling well; she is feeling dizzy and having a headache. They both go to the infirmary, where Dr. Keller mentions that she's seen similar symptoms from other crew members. McKay inquires about one of the patients, and doesn't remember who he is. Katie is surprised and reminds McKay that the patient is Gerald Baxter, one of her colleagues. Katie's symptoms then worsen and she is forced to stay in the infirmary for the night. The next morning, she wakes up from her fever, but does not remember who she or McKay are. Meanwhile, Keller warns Carter that the strange illness is starting to spread. Keller has quarantined the infirmary and is tracking the illness, which has infected a number of the crew. Meanwhile, the illness is continuing to spread, and apparently cannot be stopped by HAZMAT suits or conventional quarantine methods. It is theorized that the source may be one of the plants in the botany department, but there are no leads yet. Sheppard and Carter are afraid that the illness has infected the entire city, and decide to suspend all gate travel to prevent the illness from spreading further. Keller informs them that the illness is being caused by a bacterium that interferes with the infected individual's memory, and that the conditions gets progressively worse without treatment. The severity and timing of the illness varies from person to person. They decide to clear the mess hall in anticipation of a wave of infected patients. While clearing the mess hall, Teyla and Ronon both reveal that neither of them have suffered any of the symptoms, and doubt they are infected. They go to Keller, who decides to take a blood sample from them. Unfortunately, Keller begins to lose her memory as well, which hampers her ability to treat the patients. Suddenly, one of the patients begins to convulse and, despite Keller's best efforts, ultimately expires. Meanwhile, while escorting people to the mess hall, Sheppard is starting to slowly lose his memory. Also, it is getting harder to control the crew because they are also losing their memories and are becoming more mistrustful of each other. Sheppard then meets Major Lorne, who is arming the troops with Wraith stunners. Lorne predicts trouble ahead so Sheppard approaches Lorne with a plan. Keller then finds out why Teyla and Ronon are not affected. The illness affecting the crew is very similar to a common childhood illness in the Pegasus Galaxy called Kierson Fever. McKay theorizes that the illness was transported to this planet by the Ancients when they scouted it, where it then mutated separately from the rest of the Pegasus Galaxy version, as the planet they're on had no Stargate before Atlantis arrived. The illness now adversely affects humans not native to the Pegasus Galaxy, as most natives have an immunity from previously having it when they were children. Teyla had it when she was eight and Ronon had it when he was ten, so they still have antibodies in their systems from that which protects them. Unfortunately it would take months to synthesise a cure from their antibodies, if it could even be done. Teyla states, however, that the Athosians used a common plant to treat the illness, and that she can go back to her home planet and get some. However, when Carter suspended all gate travel, she also gave the gate control crystal to Zelenka for safekeeping. Unfortunately, Zelenka had disappeared and nobody knows where he is. Without the gate crystal, the crew decides to check the mainland for the plant, as it is common on most Pegasus planets. Ronon and Sheppard take a Jumper to search (Ronon says it grows like a weed on Sateda so he knows what to look for) while Teyla and McKay try to find a way to distribute the cure. McKay decides the best way to distribute the cure is to turn the plant into an aerosol and distribute the gas through the city vents. Teyla then leaves the lab to investigate a strange noise when she is confronted by Lorne and a team of soldiers. Lorne insists that Teyla go to the mess hall, but she attempts to run and is eventually stunned. Without Teyla, McKay is unable to focus on his job and in desperation, begins recording a message for himself in the future. On the mainland, Sheppard, who has lost his memory, begins getting suspicious. Ronon stuns and ties Sheppard up, not wanting him to get in the way. Back in the present, a confused McKay is wandering the halls. He finds a dead man in the hall, and runs into an armed and scared Zelenka, who warns McKay about the soldiers. They both obviously do not remember one another. Zelenka leaves to hide from the soldiers, while McKay continues on to try and find Teyla. McKay runs into Major Lorne and a group of soldiers, who promptly stun McKay and drag him away. McKay then wakes up in the mess hall with the rest of the Atlantis crew, including Carter and Keller. Nobody in the room can remember what has happened McKay asks them if any of them know who Teyla is, but nobody remembers. McKay then frantically writes instructions on his own body because he is already starting to lose his memories. He is determined to escape, so Carter tries to come up with a plan to escape their prison. When the soldiers open the door, the crew ambushes the soldiers, distracting them long enough for McKay and Carter to escape. They wander the halls when they run into Zelenka, who joins their group. However, even with the new addition to the group, they are still no closer to finding Teyla. As they elude the patrols, it is revealed that in order to stave off the illness, Lorne and his men have been taking stimulants. While they helped keep their symptoms from worsening, the drugs also served to make the soldiers more paranoid and irrational. Lorne goes to the city's brig where Teyla is being held. He then interrogates Teyla, believing her to be responsible for the illness. McKay, Carter, and Zelenka then arrive, stun Lorne, and free Teyla (they ultimately couldn't locate her own their own, so they followed Lorne, and McKay had written the code to the forcefield on his arm). They return to McKay's lab, where McKay completes the preparations to disperse the cure throughout the city (turns out, when he said he was almost done, all he had left to do was press "Enter"). Back on the mainland, Ronon finally returns to the Jumper after collecting the plants, but is ambushed by an amnesiac Sheppard, who holds him at gunpoint. Ronon manages to talk Sheppard down and convince him that he is a friend. They board the Jumper and return to the city. The soldiers detect the oncoming craft and confront Sheppard and Ronon. Ronon tells Lorne to look in his pocket, where he finds a picture of Sheppard with writing that tells Lorne that Sheppard is the commanding officer. This was Sheppard and Lorne's backup plan in case the both of them lost their memories. Lorne defers to Sheppard and Ronon's authority and they go to deliver the cure. One day later, Sheppard wakes up in the infirmary. The cure was spread through the city's ventilation systems and everybody has regained their memory in time to save most of the crew from the fatal stages of the illness. Meanwhile, McKay has been at Katie's side ever since the cure had been distributed. Katie then wakes up and remembers McKay, which makes both of them glad.
